In his article entitled "Doom 3: Possibly The Worst Idea In The History Of Gaming," Chris Buecheler states that he does not support id's decision to make a new game set in the Doom universe. Not only does he not like the idea, he says that "making another Doom game is about the worst thing id Software could possibly do with their millions of dollars." I tend to disagree. Of course, making another sequel in the Doom series might not be the most original idea, but id Software could do far worse than to remake one of the most beloved games of all time. Chris offers three reasons why a new Doom game is a bad idea. Unfortunately, all three of these reasons are inherently flawed.

1) Doom's Creators

Buecheler notes that the id Software of today is not the id which first created Doom over half a decade ago. John Romero, Sandy Petersen, American McGee, Shawn Green, Tom Hall - all of the creative minds behind Doom have moved on to other companies. The only employees left from the days of Doom are John Carmack, Adrian Carmack, and Kevin Cloud - programmer and artists, respectively. Without the minds that made Doom what it was, id can't possibly hope to create a worthy sequel, right?

Wrong. If anything, id Software is more poised now to create a game worthy of the Doom legacy than they have ever been.

When Doom was made, the FPS genre was nearly nonexistent. No one knew what sort of things they should include, or how to go about creating a "good" first-person shooter. Sandy Petersen and John Romero, the creators of the majority of the levels in Doom and Doom 2, had no prior experience in making levels for FPSes, because they were practically inventing the job. Today, id has mappers like Tim Willits, Paul Jaquays and Christian Antkow - professionals who have been refining their skills for five years or more.

Doom offered nonstop action and visceral gameplay

Engine? John Carmack is still at the head of the 3D engine field, and instead of learning how to create one for the first time (not counting Wolfenstein 3-D), he's working on his third or fourth one, and he has a team of similarly experienced coders backing him up.

Gameplay? Whereas the original Doom had no dedicated game designers, id Software now has one by the name of Graeme Devine, who has worked in the game industry for decades.

Art? Id's games have never been ugly. Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud have only honed their skills during the past seven years, and skinner/modeler/artist Kenneth Scott has come on board, with his well-known passion for Doom. After the recent dismissal of Paul Steed, two new modelers/animators will be joining the team as well.

Id's development team in 1993, while talented, was basically creating a new genre which none of them had much of an idea how to work in. Nowadays, id has a team of people who have been in the field for years, and has seen what works and what does not.